Info
The Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB) is the international consortium that jointly operates the PDB archive - the single global repository for experimentally-determined atomic models of biomolecules. It was founded in 2003 so that the PDB could be maintained cooperatively across national centers rather than by any single organization. All data are available free of restrictions. The wwPDB is the authoritative reference for macromolecular structure data and underpins the training data for modern structure prediction (including AlphaFold).
Member bodies
- RCSB PDB - Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics Protein Data Bank (USA, Rutgers / UC San Diego)
- PDBe - Protein Data Bank in Europe (EMBL-EBI, Hinxton UK)
- PDBj - Protein Data Bank Japan (Osaka University Institute for Protein Research)
- BMRB - Biological Magnetic Resonance Data Bank (UConn Health)
- EMDB - Electron Microscopy Data Bank (full member since January 2021, jointly operated by EMBL-EBI and RCSB since 2007)
- PDBc - Protein Data Bank China (Associate Member since 2022; transitioning to full membership, hosted at ShanghaiTech / National Facility for Protein Science Shanghai)
Governance
The wwPDB is governed by a Scientific Advisory Committee (AC) that meets annually and includes representatives from each member body, external scientific-society representatives (IUCr, ISMAR, 3DEM), and the Principal Investigators of each archive. Day-to-day operations are coordinated across member bodies via the OneDep deposition system.
Charter: 2021 wwPDB Charter with Appendix (PDF)
wwPDB Advisory Committee and Task Forces
The wwPDB Advisory Committee and various task forces
Info
The wwPDB Scientific Advisory Committee oversees the Worldwide Protein Data Bank consortium. It convenes annually (most recently 17 October 2025, virtual) and includes representatives from each member body plus external scientific-society representatives (IUCr, ISMAR, 3DEM). The full 2025 roster is cross-linked from the wwPDB parent page.
Beyond the AC itself, wwPDB operates through a network of Task Forces and Working Groups that tackle archive-level technical questions (validation, data models, integrative methods). Each has a charter and its own rotating membership.
Integrative / Hybrid Methods thread
- PDB-IHM
- 2019 PDB IHM Task Force Participants
- Initial PDB IHM Task Force Participants
- PDB IHM Federation Working Group Members
- PDB IHM Model Working Group Members
- PDB IHM Ex-officio members from the wwPDB
- PDB IHM Model Developer Group Members
Task Forces
- wwPDB task force-Validation Task Forces
- wwPDB task force-X-Ray Validation
- wwPDB task force-NMR Validation
- wwPDB task force-EM Validation
- wwPDB task force-Small Angle Scattering (SAS)
- wwPDB task force-PDBx mmCIF Working Group
- wwPDB task force-Hybrid Integrative Methods (= PDB-IHM)
- wwPDB task force-Ligand Validation Workshop
- wwPDB task force-ModelCIF Working Group
Primary sources
Link to original
wwPDB Principal Investigators (2025)
| Archive | PI |
|---|---|
| RCSB PDB | Stephen K. Burley |
| BMRB | Jeffrey C. Hoch |
| PDBj | Genji Kurisu |
| EMDB | Kyle Morris |
| PDBe | Sameer Velankar |
Advisory Committee roster (17 October 2025 meeting)
Chair and officers
| Role | Member | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|
| Chair and 3DEM Representative | John Rubinstein | University of Toronto / Hospital for Sick Children |
| Co-Chair | Hari Arthanari | Dana-Farber Cancer Institute / Harvard Medical School |
| IUCr Representative | Jennifer L. Martin | University of Queensland (Emerita) / Griffith University |
| ISMAR Representative | Charles Schwieters | NIH Center for Information Technology |
Member-body representatives
| Member body | Representative | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|
| BMRB | Hari Arthanari (Co-Chair) | Harvard Medical School |
| BMRB | Christina Redfield | University of Oxford / Wolfson College |
| RCSB PDB | Kirk L. Clark | Novartis |
| RCSB PDB | Paul Adams | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |
| PDBe | Martin Walsh | Diamond Light Source |
| PDBe | Anastassis Perrakis (regrets) | Netherlands Cancer Institute |
| PDBj | Toshiya Senda | KEK Photon Factory |
| PDBj | Kyeong Kyu Kim | Sungkyunkwan University |
| EMDB | Sjors Scheres | MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology |
| EMDB | Giulia Zanetti | Birkbeck |
Associate members
| Country | Representative | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|
| China | Wenqing Xu | ShanghaiTech University |
| India (candidate; regrets) | Debasisa Mohanty | National Institute of Immunology |
Recent activities (2025)
Per the 2025 AC report and meeting (17 October 2025):
- OneDep technical debt - the AC identifies retiring OneDep legacy architecture as the top strategic priority; encourages the wwPDB to scope costed plans for a global OneDep instance (with failover) to replace multiple geographically-distributed instances.
- PDBc (China) full-member transition - PDBc now processes 100% of depositions from mainland China. AC strongly supports transition to full membership, which requires installing servers in Shanghai and training local staff.
- Funding advocacy - AC committed to publishing a high-profile journal communication emphasising the value of the wwPDB Core Archive to counter funding concerns; would include Nobel Laureates and Pharma/Biotech leaders as co-signatories.
- Joint international grants - BBSRC-NSF grants for deposition and validation were discussed; BBSRC-JST is the only known comparable joint mechanism. AC urges focus: OneDep upgrade should not be compromised by other efforts.
Primary sources
- Recent Meeting Minutes: https://cdn.rcsb.org/wwpdb/docs/about/advisory/wwpdbac2025-meeting.pdf
- 2025 AC Report: https://cdn.rcsb.org/wwpdb/docs/about/advisory/wwpdbac2025-report.pdf
- 2021 wwPDB Charter: https://cdn.rcsb.org/wwpdb/img/about/2021_wwPDB_Charter_with_Appendix.pdf